Work In Progress
by ForeverFinally
Summary: Marik and Bakura have a small moment in a dingy apartment bedroom. And by moment I mean some kissing and confusion (could be considered part of my other fic Darkness Experiment, but okay for a stand alone I guess). Thiefshipping.
An excuse to write some Bakura/Marik getting a little frisky, perhaps? ;)

Bakura is learning to be a little more human. Marik is happy to help.

This is intended to be a little bonus moment from my Darkness Experiment fic, but you don't need to have read it. All you need to know is that Yami Bakura has his own body, and he is protecting Marik from Yami Marik through a mind link and the Ring. Okay, that's it.

 _Work In Progress_

 _888_

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There were the fading stains of blood dotted on the old bedroom carpet, and Ryou had walked in thinking that at least one of them was a dead body and the other a wanted murderer.

As it happened, neither Marik or Bakura had spilt any blood, and Marik had to explain that the blood had been there since the day they'd moved into the horrible apartment and that Ryou shouldn't worry so much.

Ryou had left with a smile that looked more like terror, and eyes that plead: _please be alive in the morning. Please._

Marik couldn't really blame him.

Even if he was no longer afraid of Bakura, he was still sometimes uncertain about what he might do. It wasn't the same thing.

The way Bakura's mouth moved was kinder now. His teeth weren't so jagged, and his eyes not so sharp. Perhaps being a 'person' did that. Marik wasn't sure, he'd never had much time for people before.

He returned Bakura's experimental smile. "What?"

"Nothing," Bakura said, and the fragile curve of his mouth turned back into something Marik was far more used to.

The Spirit looked to the side, as if someone was sitting in the corner of the room, watching them both. He might have even looked self-conscious, but Marik doubted that too. He doubted so much, he sometimes wondered if he was still losing his mind.

He put a hand across Bakura's arm, as if that might confirm something.

Bakura continued to frown, dark eyes on the hand. "It's alright, Marik. I'm not going to do anything...untoward."

"I know."

Even though Marik still doubted plenty of things, he _did_ know that.

He curled his fingers properly around Bakura's thin wrist, pretending it was warm and alive and human. Somehow it always made him feel a little better.

At least touching Bakura reminded him that the Spirit was real, and he wouldn't just dissolve into darkness like all those times before, when Marik could never be sure what he was even made of. He had the usual clichéd visions of demons with horns and scales and wings, hoofed feet and pin-sharp teeth and scarlet-red eyes.

Perhaps Bakura would prove all those cliches right eventually. For now it hardly mattered though.

"Will you sleep?" Marik asked.

Bakura's frown became childish. "If I must. I suppose you want me to?"

"It'd do you good."

"Are you saying I look a state?" Bakura sounded amused.

"No more so than usual," Marik tried to hide his smirk, and then reached out, pushing the spiked hair away from Bakura's forehead, so he might get a better look at his face. " _Are_ you tired?"

Bakura pushed Marik's hand away. "Not especially."

"That could mean anything," Marik rolled his eyes to the ceiling and let out a sigh.

In truth, he couldn't be sure whatever Bakura felt when it came to this sort of stuff. Did a Spirit ever feel tired in the way a 'proper' human did? Hell, did a Spirit feeling _anything_ in the same way a human did?

That was the question, always burning somewhere at the back of Marik's very distracted mind.

"It means, I'm not especially tired," Bakura frowned some more, but his eyes were flashing something else.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Marik wondered.

Bakura shrugged. "whatever you want, I suppose?"

Marik internally startled, and perhaps his eyes widened a fraction.

The question hung in the air like a tease, playing with the silence that followed.

Bakura was good at wording things...in interesting ways. Marik would put it down to the Spirit's complete lack of experience when it came to interacting with _anything_ (he'd cut him some slack for that, it had been over three thousand years, after all), but sometimes Marik thought Bakura might be messing about with some human concepts he really had no right to know about.

Sometimes Marik thought Bakura was really getting the hang of this 'human' thing.

Bakura's tongue flicked over his pale lips. Not even suggestively. But Marik could've (okay, he did) thought about it like that.

Maybe Bakura just liked messing about with Marik.

"You suppose?" Marik punctured the silence at last, hoping he sounded like anything but what he was feeling.

His stomach was flipping, in a weird, excited sort of way. It was, to suffer another bad cliché, butterflies. And Marik kind of hated that expression. He curled his lip.

Bakura nodded, his expression blank to anyone but Marik, who knew him better than anyone else.

His mouth was quivering, and his eyes had changed.

The old springs of the bed protested a bit when Marik budged forward, just a couple of inches, so that he might get a better look at the eyes. A really terrible sort of excuse, but true anyway.

Bakura's eyes looked darker, which shouldn't have been anything interesting, but to Marik it was. The Spirit's mouth had also parted the tiniest bit, and that was interesting too. Bakura was always interesting, and Marik noticed every slight change in his...friend.

"What're you doing?" the Spirit asked, and his voice was lower for some reason.

Then Marik realised he was so close to the other that their noses might have touched. It was even more interesting to realise that Bakura hadn't moved, and he didn't look like he would either.

Perhaps it was like a game, to see how close he could get. But then Marik knew that wasn't quite right. He knew that Bakura wouldn't move.

He tilted his head, just a bit, and then moved a hand to catch the Spirit's jaw. It felt smooth and delicate, like it might fade away from him at any moment.

When he closed his eyes, he imagined that Bakura was alive, and that he might feel warm and make sounds that were not supposed to be heard by anyone else but Marik.

In reality, Bakura's lips were cool and dry, and his fingers made Marik flinch as they tapered carefully up his arms, reaching his neckline and then his jaw. It was what Marik had guessed he'd feel like, but it wasn't what he'd expected to happen.

He pushed Bakura back onto the bed, and only stopped kissing him to curse the whine of the mattress.

"Are you worried," Bakura said, his voice little more than a murmur. "that someone might hear?"

Marik blinked at him. "Hear _what?_ " he could mess about too.

Bakura grinned, but it was easy and without calculation. "what do you think?"

Marik poked him playfully in the chest. He felt sharp with bones.

"I don't know...what do _you_ think?"

Now it was Bakura's turn to roll his eyes, and he pulled Marik down by his shirt, to meet his mouth again.

The kiss was harder, and Bakura's mouth was suddenly hot and sharp with teeth, and his tongue entwined with Marik's for only a few seconds, but it was like a bolt of electricity shooting up Marik's spine. Bakura made a soft sound, like a moan running into a whimper, and Marik felt his cheeks flood with heat. Opening his eyes, he saw the pink tint that had reached Bakura's face, and the way his chest was moving prominently up and down.

It made Marik feel dizzy.

"Is it...is it okay?" he asked, for some stupid reason.

Bakura's mouth wavered, and then he laughed. He sounded breathless.

"Yes, Marik. It's _fine._ "

Marik had a good idea that Bakura was mocking him, but it was easily forgotten.

Bakura's laugh was different and made Marik want to kiss him some more. It wasn't anything like Bakura's laugh within the Ring, or whenever he might have threatened death or imagined something malicious, perhaps. It was lighter, _softer_. Like everything else about him in that moment.

Besides all of that, Marik could feel the link between them pulsating, like two electric wires sparking, dangerously. Ra, it was a good feeling.

"Are _you_ okay?" Bakura asked. He was smiling and nothing else. How strange it was.

" _Fine_ ," Marik attempted to sound mocking, but his voice felt weak in his ears.

He tilted Bakura's chin up, and kissed him again, slowly and with purpose.

He wanted to hear Bakura make that sound again, and so much more. He wanted Bakura's face to look that serene and content all the time, only because it was so rare, and it made Marik feel like things might be okay in the end.

Bakura gasped in his mouth, and his hands clutched at Marik's back, painfully, like he was trying to fix them together. Marik smoothed a hand through Bakura's hair; simultaneously finding Bakura's jaw with the other, feeling it tremble through the kiss, and then the way the thief's entire body seemed to tremble beneath him.

Marik smiled against Bakura's mouth, secretly frantic with excitement, his heart thundering in his chest. He hadn't thought that Bakura might react like this. Not that Marik had thought about these sorts of things too much. Okay, maybe a little then.

Another moan escaped the Spirit, and with it his body arced up and his head tilted back, so that Marik could see his exposed neckline. Trailing a little lower onto his chest, was the Ring, reminding Marik of everything he didn't want to.

"Are you afraid?"

Bakura must've realised.

Marik blinked and shook his head too fast. "No, no. No, I'm not." he found it hard to swallow. "It's just...thinking about..it."

He couldn't even say the other creature's name. Not now, not in _this moment._

Bakura sighed, in an uneven sort of way. His body was no longer tensing though, and his expression had become that mildly irritated scowl again. The moment had gone.

He reached out a hand, and stroked Marik's arm.

"He can't hurt you. I promise." His words did not sound comforting. It was more like an insistent I-can't-believe-you-don't-believe-me sort of voice. "I won't let him,"

And it wasn't even that Marik didn't believe him. He believed, more than anything, that Bakura would do everything within his power to make sure Marik's dark half did not hurt him.

Marik forced himself to smile at Bakura. "I know."

He was just afraid that the other half would win anyway, and Bakura would die.

Bakura propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes rested on the hand that was clutching the Ring.

It took Marik a moment to realise he was holding it so tightly, his knuckles were whitening.

"Sorry," he wasn't sure why he'd said it, like he was somehow violating the Spirit. He let go of the Ring and it fell back on Bakura's chest.

Bakura didn't seem to mind. He rubbed an arm over his eyes, and sighed again.

"I won't die," he said matter of factly.

The words stung Marik. "I know you won't-"

"So stop thinking useless things," Bakura's eyes narrowed. "why do you waste energy on worry?"

"I'm not! Don't...don't flatter yourself," Marik scowled, but it was half hearted, he knew.

Bakura smiled contrarily back. Then he yawned.

"You _are_ sleepy," Marik forgot his anger at once.

"Just a little."

"Hm. If you say so."

Bakura smiled properly then. "I do say so."

Marik opened his mouth, not sure what he wanted to say. Bakura still looked warm and soft against the bed like that. It was only the Ring which marred his thoughts.

"I can take it off, if you like?" Bakura read his mind.

"What..no!" Marik pressed his hands back, fiercely, on the Ring, against Bakura's chest. He could feel the quickening beat of a heart there, strong against his palm. "You need it, for protection."

Bakura looked thoughtful. "But without it, you might want to..." he trailed off. It wasn't quite embarrassment (that didn't seem to reach Bakura's emotional range), but it was something like that, and Marik knew what he was trying to say.

It made Marik blush, too.

"No, it's okay. I don't...I'm not gonna risk you...I'm not gonna risk anything for this."

Bakura looked confused. "Don't you want to?"

"Of course I do, more than anything," Marik didn't have to think about it. "I just...urgh," He slouched back into a sitting position, so that he was rested lightly against Bakura's legs. "You don't even understand. What's the point?"

Bakura tipped his head, like a curious dog. It would have looked cute if not for the way his eyes flickered, giving away however many dark thoughts he had.

"I will kill him with my bare hands, Marik. And you can watch me," He said, like it was a romantic suggestion.

Marik winced.

"Okay. Great."

"Don't you want that?"

"I dunno. I guess. I think...I just want you to be okay, though. You understand?"

Bakura looked to the side, his face contemplative. Marik could almost see his mind whirring with confused thoughts. Sometimes it was endearing. Other times it was frightening. Remembering that Bakura could barely even imagine what compassion might be, never mind feel it.

And to think he was trying, anyway.

"You are...strange, Marik." The Spirit said at last, and it made Marik laugh.

He leaned back down to Bakura, intentionally keeping his gaze locked on Bakura's eyes, away from the Ring. He could forget that, for just a moment. A moment was all he needed now.

Gently, he curved a hand over Bakura's cheek, tracing his skin and trying to remember the way it'd blushed pink only minutes before.

It was like a vision of hope, or something optimistic like that. A reminder that Bakura wasn't all bitterness and danger. He was _trying_ and he was _learning_. He was a work in progress, if only by accident.

"You're strange, too," Marik said, and kissed Bakura again. "But it's okay. I sort of like it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Crazy, aren't I?"

Bakura grinned, like he'd heard a great joke. "Mm," he did nothing to convince Marik otherwise, and that in itself was funny to Marik.

Marik rolled gracelessly over so that he was at Bakura's side on the little bed, able to tangle an arm messily within Bakura's, so that they were almost holding hands but not quite. Everything was "almosts" and "not quites", so Marik was realising.

He turned his head, so that he could see Bakura's profile. The Spirit was watching the ceiling, in a way that someone might watch the night sky.

"I will crush his skull between my hands," Bakura said, in a quiet voice. "I'll make him bleed every last drop from his body. I will watch the light dim from his eyes."

Marik stared at him. "Don't,"

"Why shouldn't I?" Bakura turned his head to look at him, his brow crinkling into some indignation. " _I want to._ "

"I mean, don't talk about that now. Please?"

Bakura stared at him some more, as if searching for something within him, like he was expecting Marik to fold and say _forget about it_. But Marik held his breath, and held the Spirit's stare. His hand twitched and moved to find Bakura's, subconsciously.

He wasn't afraid of Bakura. _He wasn't._

"...alright." Bakura said after a long moment. "Whatever you want." for a second, his gaze was frustrated and vulnerable, and it made Marik want to smile again.

He squeezed Bakura's hand, harder than he needed to. It still felt too cold, but Marik didn't notice it so much.

"Thanks, Bakura."

Bakura closed his eyes, a smirk reaching his lips. "Don't mention it."

Marik smiled. Definitely a work in progress.

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A/N: To be clear, it's not like i'm going down the route of a character trying to actively change another character. It's more a supernatural thing, with the fact that Bakura isn't entirely human, and Marik's trying to help him experience more of that. Anyway this was like a little practise/warm up. I'm trying to get back into writing.


End file.
